“The Appalachian Dulcimer has been a part of the mountains since the settlers settled here in the appalachian mountains in the 1700’s. The early version of the dulcimer had basically the same shape as the ones shown on the front cover, however the previous dulcimer was more rugged because the tools and machinery were not as available as they are today. The dulcimer was not an instrument that a frontiersman could find at a nearby trading post. If a family had an appalachian dulcimer it was probably made by a member of the family or passed down through generations. Many of the dulcimers were made by women.
If a family had any paint, some of it would surely be used on the dulcimer. It wasn’t uncommon for a dulcimer to be painted an old dull, barn red. You may wonder why someone would want to cover up the woodgrain that makes the dulcimer of today so beautiful. The reason the dulcimer woodgrain was covered was because varnishes were not available and unvarnished wood of the dulcimer looked too much like the furniture and walls of the type of homes that people lived in at that time.
The dulcimer you hear on this album is one of the many dulcimers made by Tom Hicks (commonly known as the Mountain-Man). All of the songs except “Scotland The Brave” are played in “G”. For those who have a dulcimer and would like to play along with us can tune the dulcimer to “G” by tuning the bass string to the G note and the remaining strings to the next higher D note. This is called lonian tuning. Scotland The Brave is played in a bagpipe tuning which can easily be done by lowering the bass string to the next lower D note one octave lower than your melody strings).
Another instrument on this album (the Autoharp) was first produced in 1885 at Zimmermann’s workshop in Philadelphia. The Autoharp was also a part of our appalachian heritage. It was a favorite among elderly women who would set their autoharp in their lap and strum the chords with a feather while singing old ballads passed down from generations.
Many people relate to an autoharp as an instrument used only for rhythm and strumming chords. Please take note that by using extra finger and wrist movement combined with the syncronizing of the chord bars, the autoharp is capable of being a lead instrument and have rhythm at the same time. Some songs I have had to interchange chord combinations for each note. If you hear some off rhythm clacking noises it will be the felt bars as they are pressed momentarily and quickly released to correspond with the lead notes.
The songs on this album and the technique of which each instrument is played revolves the era of the early 1900’s. Families in the remote areas of the appalachian still depended on this type of music for entertainment and relaxation. The title “The Mountain’s Fading Sounds of the Dulcimer and Autoharp” is still legitimate. The dulcimer and autoharp has just about faded out of our lifestyle.
We hope you enjoy the arrangements of this album. We tried to keep the pace of this album in a happy medium; not modern and not ancient, and just enough artistic skill on the guitar played by Mike Mosier.”